The present invention relates to a printer apparatus and method for color printing, including a threaded screw driven slide apparatus and method for reciprocally moving a receptor material and a print head of the printer apparatus relative to one another during the printing process.
When printing a colored image onto a receptor material such as a plastic card or the like, three primary colors are typically used to create the composite color image. This is typically accomplished in three separate passes using a print head to print the first primary color from a ribbon onto the receptor material, then the second primary color from a ribbon onto the receptor material, and then the third primary color from the ribbon onto the receptor material. Typically, this is accomplished by moving the receptor material by use of a bi-directional tractor feed, if the receptor material is continuous, or by use of rotating drums, if the receptor material is feed one sheet at a time. A problem encountered with these methods and others is being able to accurately line up the printing of each color on the receptor material during each pass so that the image has the desired clarity and resolution and is not smeared or smudged. This is difficult to accomplish when printing images very quickly.
The present invention solves these problems and others associated with the prior art.